The Full PlaTe

watch a community growPlant a seed

I n t h I s I s s u e

Gardening provides hope for hungry neighbors

Associates champion Direct Connect program

Walmart Donations Save Pantry

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Fall 2013F E E D I N G O U R H U N G R Y N E I G H B O R S

T here is nothing extravagant about a box. It’s a piece of cardboard signifying unknown potential. When

it is fully assembled, it is still just a box. It remains empty until an item occupies the space where it can become something more.

As we look forward to the upcoming holiday season, we work tirelessly to fill that space with the hope a holiday meal provides to those

who otherwise would do without this simple tradition. Each day can be a struggle for a family facing hunger. That

struggle is amplified when the holidays roll around. Advertisements are plastered on billboards and commercials run non-stop about being together at a table to share a meal and a story or two. Those ads don’t always depict real life.

The reality is more than 425,000 people face hunger in northern Illinois. That is enough people to fill Soldier Field seven times.

We encourage you to help us make a holiday meal possible for a family, or families, who can’t. A $30 donation will provide a box containing a turkey, potatoes, gravy, vegetables, fruit, and dessert – all the items needed to have a traditional holiday meal – for a local family in need.

Last year we distributed over 30,000 of these boxes through our network partners. This year, we want to do more. Please consider making a donation.

Thank you to our wonderful community of supporters for all that you do in helping us feed our hungry neighbors. With you by our side, I know that together, we can solve hunger.

Sincerely,

Pete Schaefer, President and CEO

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Fill a Box Fall 2013

We’re Gold Because You Went Orange

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I n May, Northern Illinois Food Bank received a Golden Trumpet Award from the Publicity Club of Chicago for our 2012 Hunger Action Month Go Orange Day media

relations campaign. We presented TV anchors with Go Orange T-shirts and asked them to support hunger awareness by wearing orange on the air. The campaign was a major success. News anchors on all Chicago and Rockford TV stations mentioned the food bank and the work we do to help feed hungry people. Many wore orange on-air and encouraged viewers to do the same in support of Hunger Action Month along with sharing the message via social media.

We’re going orange again this year and we need your help! On Thursday, September 5, you can “Go Orange” and

show your support for Hunger Awareness. Wear an orange shirt, Dine Out for Hunger, help us ‘fill a plate,’ encourage your workplace to light up your company orange or simply put up a flyer in your business window to let everyone know you support Northern Illinois Food Bank in its efforts to feed our hungry neighbors. Be sure to post photos of your “orange” efforts on our Facebook page.

To download a Hunger Action Month flyer or to learn other ways you can get involved in Hunger Action Month, log on to www.solvehungertoday.org/hAM

Hunger Action Month

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Warren-Sharpe Community Center was in a precarious position. Demand for food was increasing at the food pantry, but its funding

stream was running dry. “The number of people coming in was

going up,” said Kay Bolden, executive director of Warren-Sharpe Community Center in Joliet. “It was the first time in my memory that I had to turn people away; we had no food. That was horrendous, absolutely horrendous.”

On the verge of a tough decision about the

center’s future, Kay found a saving grace within the community: her local Walmart.

As part of the food bank’s Direct Connect program, the center picks up perishable foods, produce and packaged goods nearing their sell-by date from the Shorewood store four to five times a week. In 2012, the Shorewood Walmart donated the equivalent of 102,100 meals to the pantry.

“The Walmart connection saved the food pantry,” Bolden said. “Because of Walmart, we didn’t have to turn anyone away. We had produce, canned goods, dairy, and meat. We

get such a variety of fresh food. The people we serve have a much better variety of food and are eating much better.”

The program not only kept the pantry doors open; it helped the center double the number of families it serves from 400 to 800 per month.

“I think that in years past, when Walmart did not participate in the program, of all the waste we created and the potential we had to help people,” said Jeff Faron, store manager, Walmart #2956. “I’m glad we identified that opportunity and we’re making use of it.

“I’m proud to work for a company that realizes its responsibility of giving back to the community and being a good neighbor, and actually doing it and participating in a program like this,” GaIl Basar, Walmart associate.

Walmart Donations Save Pantry

Facing uncertainty

The shorewood Walmart store donated the equivalent of 102,100 meals last year.

www.SolveHungerToday.org

Gail, Walmart associate, helps John and Cameron, Warren-Sharpe Community Center, with a donation of food.

What is Grown and Shared? Tomatoes, peppers, eggplant,

zucchini, cucumbers, collard

greens, kale, swiss chard,

onion, sweet basil and cilantro

“ Success comes from your community through giving

back and learning from it,” Koz.

“ We want children to get the benefit of good

nutritious food,” Myrna.

What is Grown and Shared? Broccoli, beets, romaine, bell

pepper, potatoes, cabbage,

green onions, cauliflower,

mustard greens, kale, spinach,

onions and tomatoes

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North Chicago High School As a coach, it is your job to push the team to limits they never imagined possible. But what if members of your team had their own limits when accessing food?

North Chicago High School (NCHS) Football coach and former Chicago Bear Glen Kozlowski (Koz) realized this firsthand during a football camp when players told him the best part of camp was being able to eat three meals each day.

Koz knew he had to do something and shared his story with Northern Illinois Food Bank. That led to the creation of a community garden right next to the football field at North Chicago High School and an afterschool feeding program. Produce from the garden provides meals for the football team during their long summer practices, and the abundance is donated to local pantries in the food bank network to provide North Chicago families facing hunger with fresh vegetables.

All items are planted and harvested by his football team and members of the Future First Program, a program housed in NCHS that is dedicated to building long-term relationships between youth and employers.

Rock River Valley Food Pantry “You want some tomatoes? What type of tomato plant do you want?”

Myrna Pullen greeted each Rock River Valley Food Pantry visitor in early May, and began to describe different types of tomato plants available. Myrna is one of five volunteer Master Gardeners tending to the plants in the 21 raised garden beds and 12 half barrels located on a vacant parcel next to the pantry.

Each bed held fresh soil recently watered by rainwater collected in barrels. A variety of vegetables filled each spot and most were just weeks away from being ready to harvest. In addition to providing plants for hungry neighbors to take home, the bounty from the gardens will also be available for those in need.

Myrna pondered the importance of being able to grow your own produce and having it readily available.

“When you see kids try a new vegetable for the first time and they like it, you can’t help but smile.” she said.

It has been said a garden can be your sanctuary. It is a place where all the cares and worries of the world can melt away. You plant a seed and watch it grow into something miraculous.

This year when you are working in your garden, please take a moment to think about your neighbors who are facing tough decisions when it comes to having enough food for their family. Fresh produce may not be a viable option for families with limited budgets.

So we present a challenge for you to accomplish next year. Will you set aside part of your garden and donate the produce to Northern Illinois Food Bank or your local food pantry? A little seed can go a long way in feeding our hungry neighbors.

In this issue, we are featuring four different locations in our service area that have created a community garden to provide high-quality produce for our neighbors in need.

“ To get fresh produce that can sit on your counter or in your fridge for

six days, rather than ‘must eat immediately,’ is a treat,” Chris.

“ The garden is not just to produce food, but to have an

outdoor classroom,” Kay.

What is Grown and Shared? Tomatoes, zucchini, cucumber,

beets, carrots, radishes,

eggplants, green peppers,

basil, jalapenos, celery, onions,

squash, garlic and herbs

What is Grown and Shared? Beans, tomatoes, peppers,

collard greens and herbs

www.SolveHungerToday.org

Vacant to Vegetables A neglected vacant lot can be an eyesore to a community. While Chris Cordin Blitstein was looking out the window at the empty lot next door in 2009, she was also listening to the news about the recession and massive layoffs. This gave her an idea. She gathered up some of her friends to plant a vegetable garden on the land to benefit the needy, and Vacant to Vegetables was born.

After the first season, Vacant to Vegetables moved to a much larger 5,000-square-foot plot of land on the property of St. Helena’s Episcopal Church in Burr Ridge. The 2012 growing season was their best yet—they harvested about 2,100 pounds of fresh produce, all of which gets donated to People’s Resource Center, a network partner of Northern Illinois Food Bank.

The volunteers at Vacant to Vegetables pick the produce as it’s ready throughout the summer and early fall. “We time our harvest to coincide with the pantry days.” said Chris, so that hungry families visiting People’s Resource Center will have vegetables that are as fresh as possible.

Warren-Sharpe Community Center The neighborhood surrounding Warren-Sharpe Community Center in Joliet is a “food desert.” Residents lack access to fresh and affordable food to sustain a healthy diet.

While Warren-Sharpe’s food pantry provides fresh produce when available, Kay recognized there was an opportunity to do more when people visiting the pantry were bypassing fresh fruits and vegetables because they didn’t know what they were or how to use them.

“We’d have these beautiful baby eggplants, and spaghetti squashes, and all these really cool vegetables and my clients would go, ‘what is that?’” Kay said.

In late June, the dirt was tilled and the seeds planted to start a community garden on a lot across the street from the center donated by the City of Joliet. Funding for the project came, in part, from the Will County Community Foundation and the Campaign for Human Development.

The center has partnered with University of St. Francis to develop the garden into a place where community members can learn about gardening and nutrition, and take part in tending to the plants.

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Best in Paradise

T he 8th Annual “Best in Paradise” event on June 22 at the Lombardi Club in

Rockford raised over $7,000 for Northern Illinois Food Bank. This Jimmy Buffet themed "party with a purpose" consisted of two contests: the "Best Cheeseburger in Paradise" and the "Best Margarita in Paradise." Thank you to the committed Best in Paradise planning committee, generous event sponsors, volunteers, and attendees for the event’s success!

From Farm to Pantry

Locally grown

Being in the right place at the right time can sometimes lead to a valuable connection that benefits the community. Northern Illinois Food

Bank had one of those moments this spring. Steve Ericson, Northern Illinois Food Bank’s

director of procurement, was speaking at a recent Farm Bureau event about the challenges of getting fresh produce to our hungry neighbors when he met the Slepickas, a three-generation farm family from Maple Park.

Steve mentioned that much of the fresh fruits and vegetables available to the food bank are provided through the Feeding America network from farmers out of state. Securing more local produce will help the food bank cut transportation costs, while ensuring that the food is still fresh when it reaches our hungry neighbors.

The Slepicka family saw an opportunity to expand their sweet corn business while helping people in need. Through this new food bank connection, our hungry neighbors will receive freshly picked, local sweet corn throughout the summer.

“[There is] surplus built-in up and down the supply chain,” said Tim Slepicka. “If it is a question of dumping your surplus in the field or supplying it to someone who can benefit from it, well, it just made sense to us.”

The Slepicka Family will provide the food bank with more than 172,000 ears of sweet corn over 10 weeks. Two weekly deliveries will ensure the corn is the freshest it can be without going to the field and picking it yourself. The corn will be picked in the morning and delivered to the food bank where it will be packaged by food bank volunteers that same

afternoon, and go out to our network partner feeding programs the next day.

The partnership is beneficial on many levels: it provides the farmer with a guaranteed market for his crop; the food bank has a guaranteed supply of freshly-picked sweet corn; our hungry neighbors receive sweet corn that was picked fresh from the field the day before; corn that may have been plowed under is feeding our hungry neighbors; and transportation costs and fuel consumption are significantly lowered by purchasing locally.

“This partnership will hopefully lay the groundwork as a model for expanding relationships with additional area producers to economically acquire increasingly more locally-grown fresh produce for our network partners and the hungry neighbors,” said Ericson.

Northern Illinois Food Bank will receive 172,000 ears of locally grown sweet corn through September.

“ It's an opportunity to feel of service to the community, to grow our business and hopefully to be on the forefront of greater efficiency in our food system,” Tim Slepicka.

www.SolveHungerToday.org

T his issue, we feature Avnet, an employee volunteer group that started volunteering in 2004 at the request of the late Pat Lyons, after

whom the food bank’s Volunteer of the Year West Suburban Center Award is named. Cara Schiavone of Avnet answers our questions.

AvnetHow did Avnet get involved? The late Pat Lyons used to volunteer with his church. He got a few Avnet volunteers involved and the news about how fun it was spread. We have had growing interest in our volunteer nights within our customer and supplier community as well as our families and friends. We come the first Tuesday of the month as a group. Pat originally set up our recurring volunteer nights, and we’ve been going ever since.

Why does Avnet support the food bank? The food bank is near and dear to many of us. It was Pat’s charity of choice, and after losing him to cancer, we all decided to honor the food bank in his name. We all see the growing need for help all around us. We all feel a responsibility not to ignore it. Among other many things, we hold an Annual Benefit & Volunteer night in honor of Pat to raise money for the food bank. In 2012, we raised $14,000.

Favorite food bank moment: “I would say my favorite food bank moment was when Pat Lyons organized the very first Avnet Family & Friends night in July of 2009. We had a great turnout, and we all had so much fun working together. My family has been volunteering as they are able, ever since,” said Cara Schiavone.

“When the food bank President told Nanci Lyons that they were renaming the Volunteer of the Year Award after Pat Lyons, her late husband and our dear friend. After losing his battle with cancer, it was an emotional moment for all of us. He got us all started and I am happy to be part of it for Avnet,” said Frank Finazzo.

you MatteR to uS!

Lawyers Feeding Illinois

I n April, the food bank marked the 30th anniversary of its very first distribution. A lot has changed since 1983, but our commitment to feeding

our hungry neighbors is just as strong as it was when Sister Rosemarie Burian made the first distribution of 288 pounds of food to Family Shelter in Glen Ellyn.

We asked food bank staff, volunteers and supporters to tell us about their favorite food bank moments. We share here a few of them:

“I wrote a grant to a local Kiwanis Club which had denied all our previous requests. A few weeks later, I gave two Kiwanis members a last-minute tour of the food bank’s Loves Park facility. Soon after, the club’s charity committee notified us that our grant request was approved. I learned that before the visit, the club had planned to turn us down, but the two Kiwanians had gone back and convinced their membership to fund us. The committee said my tour was ‘the reason they changed their minds.’ I felt successful as a Community Engagement VISTA for the food bank’s Northwest Center.”

–Julia Friberg, Northern Illinois Food Bank VISTA

“The best moment for me is every time I see my son, John, grow and succeed as a volunteer and giving back to the community. Volunteering has given him skills and purpose and a sense of community. I am grateful to all the staff and volunteers that embrace him every shift. He has learned how to use the hand pallet truck and work as part of a team. His self-confidence grows with every shift.”

–David Wagner, Northern Illinois Food Bank Volunteer

“We were excited at the opportunity to support Northern Illinois Food Bank’s capital campaign. When individuals and families don’t have enough to eat it makes it harder to succeed at work or school, undercutting the stability of our communities. The McCormick Foundation’s commitment to helping alleviate hunger has been a longstanding one and Northern Illinois Food Bank is a leader in providing hunger relief to help strengthen our communities.”

–David hiller, President & CEO, Robert R. McCormick Foundation

MissionMoMenTs

J ohn E. Theis, left, president of the Illinois State Bar Association and Pete Schaefer, president and CEO of Northern Illinois Food Bank, discuss the

statewide ISBA's Lawyers Feeding Illinois food and fund drive, which provided $135,000 to Northern Illinois Food Bank, enough to provide 800,000 meals for our hungry neighbors.

upcoming activitiesaugust 2315th annual Hunger Scramble Golf outing Prairie Landing Golf Club, West ChicagoFor more information visit: www.SolveHungerToday.org/golf

September is Hunger action MonthDine out for Hunger – September 5-13Go orange Day – September 5Create a team to “Fill a Plate” for your hungry neighbors! For more information visit: www.crowdrise.com/FillaPlate

For a list of all Hunger Action Month activities, visit www.SolveHungerToday.org/HAM

September 25Strike out Hunger hosted by Northern Illinois Food Bank’s young Professionals Boardtivoli Bowl, Downers GroveFor more information visit: www.crowdrise.com/StrikeOutHunger

october 3Stars and CarsLake Forest Sports Cars, Lake Bluff

october 20Barrington CRoP Hunger WalkBarrington, Location tBD

october 20Naperville area CRoP WalkGrace united Methodist Church300 e. Gartner Rd.

october 20tri-Cities (Batavia, Geneva, St. Charles) CRoP Hunger Walk Saint Charles, Location tBDVisit solvehungertoday.org for more information

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See our complete calendar of events at www.SolveHungerToday.org

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Send comments/questions about articles in this issue to cstrupp@northernilfoodbank.org